Welcome to
Dr. Malaiperumans Website

In 1946 my father went to London to become the General Secretary and Warden of The Indian YMCA in London. First it was in a Georgian terrace at 26 Woburn Square, but an advantageous swap was made with the University of London for a site in Fitzroy Square where in 1952 a brand new hostel, was built designed by a young post war architect, Ralph Tubbs.

When I was 14 years old , we were asked to write an essay in the English class entitled "Would you like your father's job? Give reasons". I have reproduced the essay exactly as I wrote, partly because of its freshness and partly because it is a contemporary historical document and if I wrote the same thing now there would be gaps in my memory

Would you like your father's job:Give reasons

My father has truly fascinating job. He is a YMCA secretary and his work includes travelling abroad , often to conferences , as well as the management of a large modern hostel for foreign students. The conferences which he has attended have taken place in cities as far apart in both custom and distance as Tokyo and Stockholm, New York and Moscow

The hostel was built in 1952 by a well known architect. It contains a lot of glass and concrete and is very symmetrical in design. My father has the advantage of working in a beautiful office in the building and that of having the flat we live only five floors away from his office. There are few jobs in which you can travel from home to work and back by lift.

He has to have a large staff including two secretaries,several receptionists, an accountant, an assistant and about ten cooks.It must be a lot of fun ordering so many people about. His job does not lack interest either, apart from the amount of travelling abroad that he does, his life in London is full of surprising situations. All sorts of amusing characters come to ask for accommodation and no two are alike.

Apart from the enjoyable though hard work,this work provides a varied social life. He is constantly meeting new people, and attending receptions, cocktail parties and garden parties, as well as giving large scale formal dinners. People who have been invited to visit the hostel include the Queen Mother, Lord Snowden, Prince Philip, Lord Mountbatten, Harold Macmillan, Sir John Hunt, two Lord Mayors, two Archbishops of Canterbury, and other important people. Needless to say, they did not all come at the same time.

Despite the difficulties and hard work this job involves, it contains several things I would like my future career to contain and these are the lovely surroundings in central London, the opportunities to travel and the meeting with famous people both the famous and the unique ordinary ones.

After I wrote this essay and before he retired my father also entertained the Queen, Prince Charles, and Indira Gandhi amongst others